KSHB 41 reporter Ryan Gamboa covers Miami County in Kansas and Cass County in Missouri. He also covers agricultural topics. Share your story idea with Ryan.
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The Harrisonville School District is expanding childcare options at its Early Childhood Center, with 48 new daycare slots offered to the community and its district staff members.
"We need to make some grade shifts within our school buildings in order to make room for an expanded preschool program," Superintendent Josh Chastain said. "Finding good childcare or just open spots was very difficult for our staff members. Looking at that, we needed something extra that would provide an opportunity for community members as well."
It's a community-wide effort, adding additional childcare options in the Cass County seat.
Harrisonville School District, the West Central Missouri Community Action Agency (WCMCAA), and local childcare provider Kidz Inc. are teaming up in the effort.
In Cass County, only 43% of the childcare needs are being met by licensed providers, according to Child Care Aware.
WMCAA, alongside its community partners, WorkforceYou, and its Tri-Share model, is working to make childcare affordable for working parents, student parents, and low-income families.
In an assessment study, the group identified childcare as a focus area in Cass County.
"With childcare, if that’s the burden that people are having and if they want to go back and get a better job, or go to school, but there’s not a childcare slot, they’re really at a disadvantage," Jamie Oberly explained.
In Cass County, it was identified that area families struggle with long wait lists, high costs, and limited options.
"There are very few childcare centers here," Kidz Inc. owner Tana Betts said.
Kidz Inc. is a private childcare facility with its flagship location in Pleasant Hill, Missouri, about 15 minutes northeast of Harrisonville.
Kidz Inc. and the Harrisonville School District signed a memorandum of understanding for the operator to run its services out of a school building. The MOU lasts two years to get the school district's childcare program up and running, and Harrisonville Schools will solely operate it.
"We’re not just a daycare, we partner with the schools, and we figure out what they need to learn to go into kindergarten," Betts added.
Travis Brave is a Harrisonville High School staff member and parent with a child at the new daycare center.
"The fact that it’s here now is incredible," he said. "Before, I didn’t get a ton of opportunities to pick up my daughter, so it’s been really fun to be the one to get to pick her up now. A little bit more bonding time between me and her."
Brave and his wife formerly took their child to daycare at the Pleasant Hill Kidz Inc. location.
Oftentimes, Brave's wife had to pick their daughter up from daycare and he needed to be at school too early to drop her off.
"On a night like tonight, where I have to supervise softball, I wouldn't see her at all," he explained.
The new daycare center in Brave's school district is allowing him to focus on what matters most.
"It just made everything a lot easier," he added.
While daycare isn't a revolutionary idea, the community partners believe that the additional resources they offer for tuition assistance, toiletry products, or their future venture of taking children to doctors' appointments are revolutionary.
The median income in the state of Missouri for a single-parent family is $39,986. Center-based childcare for an infant would use 35% of the family's income.
Kidz Inc.'s rates are on par with average prices in Missouri — about $290 for a child six weeks to two years old.
"For us, it's not so much about the money as it is that she is taken care of," Brave added.
Betts explained that children whose families cannot afford childcare often fall through the cracks.
"We see it every day," she said. "We get some naughty friends because of the situation they come from."
It's why Harrisonville Schools is excited to expand childcare services to the community and its staff — molding the youngest minds and preparing them for what's ahead.
"We recognize that what we offer, what Kidz Inc offers in our daycare, translates to students that are ready for preschool and preschool translates to students that are ready for K-12 education," Chastain said.
The Tri-Share pilot model is something the community partners hope to perfect so it can expand across rural and urban areas.
"It's just made everything a lot easier," Brave added.
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